Dead Flowers
by melissaisdown
Summary: Past Present Future. Post ep "Help me." House/Cuddy
1. forward

Notes: This will most likely be a hiatus-long fic. So updates won't be immediate. If this is well received it will be more than four chapters. The next two parts will be illustrated, hopefully. See my lj for that. This chapter is brief and expository. Title from a Rolling Stones song. Lyrics throughout. Thanks for reading! Comments and feedback are appreciated.

**Dead Flowers**

Everything has changed.

The anger turned sadness, that discouraged awareness of seeing everybody else happy together––House was sinking.

But she's stuck, standing there unexpected, the jamb of the door pressing sharp against her back. Their stagnancy intersects, reflecting off shattered shards, the pills cradled tentative in his palm.

He looks up to her from the rock bottom of the bathroom floor, gravel in his cuts, dirt in the corner of his eye. He loves her and hates her and wants her and suspects the worst. Her presence seems out of context with the facts, his feelings, the entire night unreal.

The dust of catastrophe is still coating his jacket when his savior in scrubs chokes, swallows a sigh and says three words. What's remained the same in spite of all her efforts to amend her emotions, she admits with no pretense, no romance just honesty, and relief.

Speechless, an arm stretches out and that's all he needs–– that moment when they know there was a before and there will be an after that can never been the same. She pulls, negating the gravity that brought him here. And he can stand on his own two feet, leaning in to pin her tender against the wall. Pain should guarantee this is reality but he'll always doubt the truth when she chooses him.

They move together unhurried toward the bedroom. Cuddy slides his jacket from his shoulders, the weight of leather tearing at the grated flesh. House winces, almost pulls away. She can feel blood on her fingertips.

"You're bleeding through––"

"Sit down," she says and he does. Cuddy returns with gauze and tape and peroxide. She sits beside him, helping House lift his soiled tshirt up, over and off, dabbing at the wound and rebandaging it carefully.

She brings a cool wet towel to the lacerated line along his nose, wiping off the dried blood on his scraped cheek. His hand reaches for and behind her, catching her off guard. Adjusting, she inches closer, stroking his jaw and salving the awed uncertainty in his eyes. Then they're kissing again and nothing matters but the warmth of her breath against his neck, like a promise he won't have to fix himself alone.

"You should rest," she says after a long stretch. It takes more to break away and admit than anything she's said tonight.

"I'll be out here, with a broom so you can shower when you get up."

Her words trail off. Both know she'll really be scouring the place for more of his stash.

"And in the morning?" He asks before she turns away.

"I'll be here."

Cuddy does go sweep silently withholding tears––succumbing to the significance of the night's events. House lies restless, not falling asleep until he feels her curl up behind him and whisper goodnight.

_**forward**_

The sun rises with no conclusions. The street lights shut off and the alarm doesn't sound. House wakes to find the world hasn't ended. The apartment hasn't been reduced to ashes. He hasn't been abandoned an incurable.

He watches her sleep, wondering why now––how they intuit each other's tragedies, appear before the pitfall. Her wandering in before he spiraled into relapse, him knocking the night she wept in the nursery on the verge of resignation.

Out of overwhelming gratitude, he slowly raises Cuddy's pink scrub top up along the length of her body, pressing his lips against her breast and tugging at her nipple until the pale, velvety areola erupts with goosebumps and she moans.

Even as he pits all of his accumulating joy against the fear of failing to be fixable, the agony of the past and transformations yet to come, he waits. He hesitates, cringing at the moment she opens her eyes and rushes out, regretting everything. But it doesn't come. Instead he hears something too familiar escape her in a gasp. Then all he can think of is the last time she called him Greg, the first time they kissed and the vast ravine in between.

When the moment expires, and he knows what's to come next, he rises, not wanting to taint this morning by starting something delicate and deep that they won't have the time to complete.

He's smiling and slanting, debris suspended in his scabs as her eyes open and meet his.

"How do you feel?" She asks after a beat.

The answer is a smooth descent to her nape, lingering and returning to the question on her lips. They stay connected a while, sustaining the ignorant bliss of time passing by. Then:

"I have to check in on Rachel."

There's reluctance in her voice and he loves her for it. Cuddy steps out of bed, aching, stretching and for the first time feels like she's moving forward. She puts a hand on his uninjured shoulder, wanting to ask about his leg. Not wanting to remind him.

"Shower. Decompress." She tells him. "I'll see you at work later."

"Yeah," he says, sitting up. He's not grimaced, or rubbing his thigh.

She slides on her shoes, still standing close.

"House."

Keys clang with indecision.

"If you don't want to stay here…"

Cuddy almost adds 'because' but can't bring herself to finish the explanation for the invitation. He nods, just once, and doesn't blink because his eyes are welling and she's still in the room. She bends down to kiss him goodbye and he watches her leave.

This time there's no lipstick on his cheek, no wistful remarks or you always want to kiss me, just her, with him finally, how long she hasn't been and the possibility she always will be.


	2. the story with no ending

Notes: Illustrated. At my lj. I hope it's a good visual companion to the piece. This chapter starts in the present but digresses to the past. Because canon is sort of vague and debatable and occasionally undermines itself, I improvised. Forgive me if our Michigan conceptions differ.(Another note: I should have RPF posted up soon so stop back at my journal in a few days if that is something that interests you.) If this is well received it will be more than four chapters.

Title from a Rolling Stones song. Thanks for reading! Feedback is greatly appreciated.

**Dead Flowers**

**II. The Story with No Ending**

Late, when Cuddy gets home from work, House––who avoided her outstandingly well the entire day––is sitting on her door step. The lost look turned contemplative has doubt written like a suicide note all over his face. This could be a colossal mistake. His backpack slung from his shoulder, a box beside him full of miscellany with his helmet on top, he can't help but feel like he's being readmitted into Mayfield.

She anticipated this and hands him his own key. He looks up to her, a little impressed and straining to rise to his feet. He lets her unlock the door and as they step into the foyer they see the babysitter sitting on the couch, watching some late night show a decibel above mute. Rachel's been put to bed. Cuddy yawns, letting her know she can leave.

"We're alone," House says low after the door closes. 'Déjà du,' he thinks and nothing overshadows the doubt.

"The bedroom is down the hall. First door on the left."

"If you want to start putting some things away," Cuddy clarifies.

He limps in that direction and she goes to check in on her sleeping kid. When she makes it back to her own bedroom, House isn't there. She searches to find him sitting at the bottom of the bed in the spare room.

"I said _first_ door on the left."

"I know."

Cuddy hesitates, nonplussed.

"House, you don't have to––"

"I do."

Yet the futility in trying to articulate how desperately he wants to stay at this second start, unmarred, as long as they can is insurmountable. How much he wants her, how long it's been and the discipline it takes to resist undressing her the instant she's in within reach.

She steps closer, resolves to sit with him on the bottom of the bed.

"This is your place now."

"It's not even yours yet," he counters glibly.

Which is good because if the page is blank it might be easier for them to be on the same one.

She sighs, reaches for his hand.

"You're not some stray off the street to me. I'm not letting you live here out of pity, or only temporarily. Everything here is yours."

He nods and she sees it. Fear.

"I'm just as scared of messing this up as you are."

"But you're here," she starts. "We have to start somewhere."

We did, he thinks. Ann Arbor.

On the cue of Cuddy leaning in to kiss him, Rachel cries. He wonders if that's also his now, and how he's supposed to feel.

'Sorry,' segues into a soft recitation of a lullaby as Cuddy goes to coddle Rachel. House investigates the paraphernalia cluttering the corners of the spare room. The bookshelf is empty, save for a few new ones, but a box of dusty hardbacks is close enough. He sifts through it, scoffing at the chapter titles in the parenting manuals.

His expression's somber when he finds something he wasn't expecting: her first endocrinology textbook. The class they took together. He leafs through to see her notes in the margins, a diagram he drew––some metaphor to help her remember. The next page he turns and something falls out from between. He picks it up. A Polaroid. He can still see solace in her smile, the blue of his eyes faded black.

His canted gaze straightens; he blinks the pensive glimpse of who they used to be away. Leaving the book on the nighstand, House turns off the lamp and lies awake in the dark thinking of the room where they first made love, tore every page from the epilogue. There was no quietus, no finality.

Tomorrow was always a beginning.

**Symmetry ****(pt 1)**

_**expository deductions and other first impressions**_

Webster, J. K. _Introduction to Endocrinology_

The book was missing from the shelf but no out-of-stock sticker hung above the course title and label, the place where the book belonged.

Cuddy turned toward the counter and saw him, analyzing her. More interested than intimidating. The azure ingeniousness of his eyes was a lie, a souvenir from childhood. Really he was experienced and traveled, jaded as driven. The low painful fire of intelligence kindling, he was always searching for clues.

There was already a library in her arms and she struggled to hand him her syllabus.

"Do you have any more of the Endocrinology textbooks?"

She slammed her stack of books on the counter. He was chewing gum and ignoring her, scrutinizing the print in front of him.

"Cuddy, Lisa." He finally said.

"You are overly ambitious."

Only his eyes peeked out over the edge of the paper, his hidebound mouth was hidden.

"You have a chip on your shoulder."

Her flattered smile flatlined. He wasn't merely flirting, he was convinced his deductions served some greater purpose.

"And you know how to party."

"You're making that up," she said, trying not to shout as she tore the course list from his hand.

He shook his head.

"You're schedule is overloaded. You're taking Lamb instead of Segal––who's the easier grade. And you have no classes before eleven."

This dissection at first sight was frustrating despite the residual charm in his accuracy, and his voice.

"Do you have any Endocrinology textbooks?" She repeated.

He nodded, stepped out from behind the counter, walked to the back of the store and lifted her desired book from the top shelf.

"Thank you," she said relieved after paying.

"You're welcome," he drawled, watching her walk away. The attraction was there though, born in the brevity of a first encounter, foredoomed as inescapable.

Following some academic maneuvering, they met again in what would someday be Cuddy's specialty. To veil her efforts, she feigned unattainability.

A little too well.

The first lecture that House arrived early enough to garner any proximity to her, she was being hit on by an athlete on the other side. They were talking tennis between intermittent silences in the lesson and by the end of class, he heard her answer yes to being free tonight. The broadshouldered linebacker leaned in to whisper the name of a bar in her ear, his hand grazing high on her thigh, House's face burning with anger and envy, having the moment to make his move intercepted.

It was not long before he devised a strategy to eliminate the opponent.

Cuddy considered not going. She'd been flaunting her assets as well as she could and House never acknowledged or approached. Maybe the availably hard-to-get act was too absurd to work. Tomorrow she would start a conversation, say something, say anything to let him know she existed.

Tonight was about bolstering her confidence, so that the plummet into rejection, if it came, wouldn't seem so bottomless.

She arrived early, ordered a drink. Ordered another when he was ten minutes late. At fifteen she knew the joke was on her, she'd been brushed off for a frat boy circle jerk. There was no harm in a third drink. She walked the mile to the bar and it was a warm humid night to walk home.

She lingered a little while longer and, as the place became more crowded with no familiar faces, decided to stagger off the stool, still tipsy, and drag her feet home.

The horizon had blackened, a burgundy shade of pitch.

Just as she stepped outside, the sound of the door slamming shut synchronized to an earsplitting clap of thunder. In seconds it was pouring. Cuddy looked up to the sky, feeling punished for her naivete. Closing her eyes, she stood discouraged, drenched, drunken apprehension quickly turning into a headache.

Out of the fog settling low to the ground, the rumble unnoticed, a motorcycle approached. She strained to see a heart-whole boy standing in front of her, rain running down the creases of his leather jacket, a slippery key ring spinning around a finger.

He was the right height to be the hunk who asked her out a few hours earlier, but his face was inscrutable beneath a curtain of wind and rain. Her first response was to inform him indignantly, "You're late."

"You're wet," he answered. His voice was different. He leaned closer, but gave nothing away. "And ebbing into a hangover."

She wiped her face, not disagreeing.

"Want to get a drink?"

"No," she quipped back sharp.

Their dithering was beginning to drown.

"Need a ride home?"

She looked up to him and nodded, less reluctant than she should have been. She could call a friend, she could still call a cab.

"We're going to have to wait out the storm."

Before Cuddy could sigh, he took her hand. That's when she knew who it was, his voice familiar, how it fit his cold palm and impetuous clasp. He was leading her behind the bar, running through the mud to the vacant deck. They sat on the least sodden benches, Cuddy catching her breath, House propping his mud spattered boots on the banister.

Through twisted webs of branches the highway was strobing, slow traffic and flickering headlights. In an instant, lightening split the sky and Cuddy flinched. She caught his silhouette in the flash, brooding and curious, and rubbed her arms, shivering.

He reached to cover her with his jacket and she asked,

"What are you doing here?"

House shrugged. He was in a trance. Since they met it had felt like a race against time. No words were right and time was winning.

He deflected eventually, blinking away the defeat.

"See that barn back there? Friday night there's going to be a party there. First decent one this semester. Mostly med students."

"Maybe I'll see you there." He tried to add, but the words were stifled by the last slow roll of thunder. Cuddy sat drowsy, warm now as the clouds drifted and the downpour diminished into a drizzle.

A fog had lifted, moonlight shone bright enough for her to see him, tall and trying and ready to go wherever the road leads. Maybe, she thought, wanting her with him.

"C'mon," he said, reaching out a hand to help her stand.

They trekked back to his bike, he gave her his helmet and didn't have to ask where she lived.

_**conduit caffeine**_

They wavered something less than strangers on her doorstep. Her head was clearer now, and his eyes were bright, gooseflesh rising on his exposed arms.

"Come in."

There she stood, face and form and smile against the light from inside. With a leap his heart went out of him, blood rushing torrid at the opportunity. This was what he wanted, all he wanted. His conscience was divided; he didn't budge. He ran his fingers through his hair, dripping wet, and was disconcerted by how the roles had been reversed or his indolence tested. It was his susceptibility meeting her gall, and a part of him wanted to turn and walk away, try patience in pursuit. Another part of him knew his days here were numbered.

"Warm up. Dry off at least."

Her persistence was due, he did come to her rescue. So he stepped inside, forgetting to wipe off his boots and unaware of even his own intentions.

"I'll make some coffee."

Sliding off his jacket, her tshirt was nearly translucent backlit incandescent by the lamp as she turned it on, pirouetting one leg at a time to peel off her chucks and wet socks.

"You live alone?" He asked.

"For now. " She struggled to separate the paper filters.

"The girl I was supposed to room with transferred after her first week here."

A strong pot started to brew. He turned on her TV, sinking into the couch. Her hopes rose as he channeled surfed.

"How do you take yours?" She asked after a minute.

"Black's fine"

She tiptoed over––all grace and overachievement, handing him his mug.

"Thanks," House muttered idly, trying to think of anything other than how her lips must taste, lingering alcohol and infinite hope glossing them.

He sipped, failing miserably. She curled up comfortable beside him, winsome, so close her breathing made the surface of his coffee ripple. Something at the center of him was preparing to implode if another second passed like this.

He spotted a prop in the nick of time.

"And what is _this_ doing here?"

Her Endocrinology book had gotten kicked under the coffee table. He inched it out with the tips of his fingers.

"Abandoned under a piece of furniture. After I went out of my way to get this for you."

"You got it from the top shelf, not East Berlin."

Cuddy was wide awake now and he could feel her vertigo. He reached to push a wet strand of hair away from her eyes, their stares intersecting. His promised what words and actions could never prove: if you fall hard, I'll fall harder.

After a suspended second, his thumb crooked and withdrew. Breaking the silence was self preservation.

"First exam was Monday. I cheated off you, so I hope you know this stuff."

"I know."

House rubbed his chin, scruff burning the back of his hand. Abruptly he reached across her for a pen and spent several minutes sketching on the inside cover of her book, explaining an analogy to help her memorize something complex. Then he resolved to quiz her himself.

"All hormones secreted by the pituitary gland are…?"

"Peptide hormones."

"As are…?

"Leptin,"

"From...?"

"Adipocytes."

"And…?

"Ghrelin from the stomach, insulin from the pancreas."

His mind roamed a minute.

"Good to know I got an A," he said but the certainty had gone from his voice. His arm was around her by then, and magnetism kept it there. He could see her finishing top of her class, becoming surgeon general or chief of medicine or curing the incurable.

He could see her here too, yawning relaxed against him. A long intimate silence lapsed. Cuddy thought of touching him, initiating tentative as best she could. She tried to interpret that far away look in his eyes. Something came to her from an undergraduate lit class, the difference between sentimental and romantic but she couldn't resurrect the relevance. What was worth remembering more than the smell of his skin, clean sweat and cool rain, knowing that what they have now they'll never have again.

He sighed deep, a turning point.

"It's late," he finally said.

"And?"

"Some of us have classes before eleven."

"Skip it," she suggested casually, as if she hadn't plotted and prayed for

this chance.

A noise caught in his throat, the sound of him swallowing any excuse to not stay. Then panic, he stood, nervous and still holding the mug. She stood next, too close. A hand circled her waist but the tensile strength of his balance was gone. They were walking backwards to her bedroom, House unawares and trying for the front door.

When he realized where they were he slammed the mug down on the desk. One thing would lead to another but not like this. He didn't want to be disposable, the answer to her end of summer restlessness, some lover she didn't love at all.

"Don't!" She shouted before he could, a black ring settling into a puddle on the polished mahogany. "My parents just got me that desk."

"Sorry," it was a effort to apologize. As she went to wipe it up he started back to the living room.

"House."

He looked back, his hand on the doorknob. It would have been easy to lock the deadbolt instead, to take her here and now, admitting it was inevitable.

"Thank you. For the ride."

He scarcely knew why he felt compelled to resist kissing her, except for fear he wouldn't be able to stop. Not tonight, not ever.

"Goodnight."

The screen door slammed and Cuddy stood, smiling smitten and knowing she had to see him again.

Returning to his basement apartment, House lay awake that night staring at the ceiling, trying to count how many minutes had passed before they met and confounded by how what he'd initiated as a petty infatuation had fast become more. He had pegged her as the kind to quietly crush, not the straight A seductress it seemed she was.

The gutters rattled percussion against aluminum siding and lightening burst vivid a mile away. It came to him like an afterimage when he was only half awake, that what they just experienced was a spark, a match, ignited bright but destined to burn out fast.

He had no idea it would take decades to spread into the wildfire they both wanted.

_**time waits for no one**_

Her long searching stare didn't catch his entrance but House saw her, eyes rolling as the jock he sabotaged a few nights before was trying to explain the incident that got him arrested, and how he was sure to be acquitted. House interrupted.

"Lise, I've been looking everywhere for you."

He reached for her hand and pulled her to him, lifting her arms over his shoulders and around his neck. His palm settled at the small of her back. The jock gawked. House could see out of the corner of his eye, it would take more than a waltz to repel him. In a sudden display of possession, House clutched her close, claiming her mouth with his. Their first kiss was blindsided by perfection, underscored to a song they'd always remember, sound and taste, the embrace like kismet at long last.

They opened their eyes to find they were alone again.

"I wasn't sure you'd show."

She choked a little, the unexpectedly sweet essence of him pervading permanent in her mouth, through her bloodstream. He smiled, the only recognizable feature. Clean shaven, his hair was combed; he was wearing a shirt with a collar. The incorrigible glint of an interesting lunatic was instead a boyish grin. She wasn't sure he was the same person, or if this was who she was making him. His lips still glistened with the sloppy warm spit of spontaneity.

"I'll always come for you, Cuddy."

A smile shaped. She savored the credulity of the double entendre. His hands glided lower and she let them, nestling her face in the shadow of his throat. He was even wearing aftershave.

There was a tear in the fabric of her white dress and he could already tell she was wearing nothing underneath. She caught him stealing glances even as they danced. Thighs tangent, their hips swayed and bumped and she could feel his trapped and eager lust begging to be satisfied. Cuddy struggled to banish the contradictions of what she was feeling but it was useless. He kissed her, faint, sincere at the end of the song and she loved him.

She could never help it.

She was still smiling when the ephemera of a camera flash captured them together, becoming who they are, who they'd never be again.

Then the darkness scattered and the mood was gone, and they'd been holding each other for an hour too long. The thrill of overture foreplay, grinding and squeezing and necking had waned.

"Let's get out of here," she whispered, the lure sultry in his ear.

Without a word he took her hand and they left the warm safety of the crowd, and the world as they knew it behind them.

A halcyon September day had become an unforgettable middle night. Outside the barn, House plucked a wildflower and handed it to her chivalrous, to hold for the ride home.

He drove thinking that last year she was barely legal, the kind who, when he saw wandering the campus he expected to see gaps in her mouth where she'd just lost baby teeth.

But now, on her porch as they stood in the footsteps of the other night, she was completely a woman, prying her hands out of the back pockets of his jeans to grope in her bag for the key.

The door slammed open and shut. They kissed hard, forsaking self restraint, his tongue plundering penetrative and portentous. Not until he felt lightheaded did he pull back, breathing her in.

She smelled like home and heaven and a thousand other things he never thought he'd have. House was trying to hold onto it, to her as they ambled left and right in the dark, his back finally hitting the bedroom door.

Starlight through thin drapes and he had to be James Dean, leaving Cuddy to contend with the stiff sleeves of his leather jacket until she sighed exasperated and shoved it to the floor. She let out a jagged murmur of a curse when he lifted her off her feet, carrying her to the corner and dropping her down on the desk. Pushing everything else off.

A lamp fell, the lightbulb shattering, books and binders and highlighters tumbling with it. The calendar followed; days ahead didn't matter. Alive in the moment, he was hiking up the hem of her dress until he couldn't resist pulling it apart, making the hopeless tear a tactile signature of his urgency.

There was no use trying to quell the dizzy readiness clouding his head. Knuckles were bending high on her thigh and Cuddy wished he wasn't wearing this shirt all of a sudden, there was too much between them. She twisted the row of buttons open and House plied his hands from her legs to fondle the straps of her dress, letting them fall from her shoulders. She leaned into him, her palm molding against the solid swell of denim. He broke the kiss to rub his cheek against the softness of hers, struggling to not erupt as she unzipped him agonizingly slow. He stood there like that, half naked and gloriously whole, his thumb spiraling around the ivory slope of her dangling ankle.

Caught up in the rush Cuddy stood, the dress pooling at her feet. She wanted to share herself like a secret. Strong arms under bent knees, he swept her up and took her to the bed, basking in the beauty of it all as he languorously eased out of his briefs.

A truth, almost chaste, was purling in the back of his throat.

He sprawled beside her, kissing her breathless for every syllable he couldn't say, letting their overheated frenzy subside into quiet affection.

There would never be enough time to do everything he wanted to do to her and with her and for her. Never enough time to give her body the attention it needed and deserved but he had to try, bending his head to kiss the tepid valley between her breasts, his tongue probing down into the moist opaque crevice they made.

Dense friction grew and pulsed and seeped between them, threatening to pull back or push in and suspense coiled at the core of her. She felt so empty. He kissed her mouth again, not an especially deep or definitive kiss, but Cuddy realized she'd waited her entire life for this moment, this connection, whatever it meant. Her arms around his back let go. The brave girl from minutes before froze shy. For the first time this felt real, final and fated and so fucking real.

"What is it?" His voice echoed in the stillness.

She knew there were no plans or promises, just the part each seemed to be playing in the other's incomprehensibly bright future.

Cuddy acquiesced to her heart––her whole body's desire with a roll of her hips––distracting herself with a kiss until he was there, an angled pivot then perfect inside her.

The pressure throttled him, made his eyes water and his breath falter. She was tight, too tight and House tried not to panic at the implication. He raised a hand to cradle her cheek, kissing her chin and forehead and eyes. The solicitude would be latent after that night but when he started to move and she gasped yielding, clinching at his shoulder, he knew this was more than either could have imagined.

His face sank into the space beside hers on the pillow. He pressed his lips to her temple and ear, the place where her neck ended and shoulder began before he relented and shifted and arched into her, immersed and stretching. She was wet and swollen so that after the initial sting he felt like silk.

A long smooth stroke and her voice rose. Cuddy's cries muffled on the expiring sigh, he could only hear god and oh and don't, don't, dont ever let me go. Shallow pushes drove their pubic bones into rhythmic collision. Then she was keening, eyes closed, her leg twining around his calf. Her fingers dipped into the dint of his bare back, smearing sweat. Against his will House groaned. He felt her muscles catching him, pulling him in and clenching, felt Cuddy's entire frame trembling as his name escaped a sob on the inhalation.

He slowed and shuddered, not wanting to ever stop, just stay swathed, wrapped up in her. He was high, high on the adrenaline, the emotion, the brink of something that might break him and remake him.

Her tongue traced the line of his lips and he tried to thrust faster but the motion was less finite, there was no end in sight. They clung to each other, flushed, gasping. Cuddy's fingers tunneled frantic through his hair and his tongue was rough, the edges of his teeth grazing her skin––each refusing to let the other give in.

Eternity ensued. Hushed ecstasy rising, doubling, rushed consummate and all-consuming. Suddenly they saw how accidental destinies were made and could only hope that the invincibility was no illusion. His biceps flexed, straining. Under his weight Cuddy came, a long seizing internal flutter. Her hands behind him goaded him deeper, holding him there. House finally let go, let her take him with her until they were so far gone that there was no going back, and he loved her for that. Fleeting oblivion transmuted into something unending. This much was on his lips but his lips were bound by hers and it felt like they always were, that they always would be.

A beat of awkward vulnerability, some sigh of relief. They were open wounds, hearts hemorrhaging, ears ringing. Braced on his elbows, House was still hard, still inside her. He wanted to stay, steep in the release that almost felt like completion, change yesterday so that he could still have this tomorrow.

Cuddy lay willing to spill her soul's elation, every exceeded expectation, how much she loved him here and now and no matter what. But his breathing was even, his heartbeat had fused with hers and their achingly tender goodnight kisses were lulling her to sleep. There would be time enough later, tomorrow, next week. She believed it was just beginning.

Silhouetted by predawn light and thinking she was still asleep, House crept out of bed. Cuddy listened to him dress and listened to him leave, like she knew he would. She waited to hear his bike pull away then moved to the door and locked it, finding the wildflower trampled dead on carpet.

She picked up the pedals, rearranging what still had color on her mantle, making nothing of the melancholic metaphor.

The day passed in a haze. The world seemed to think it was Saturday, but to Cuddy it was still last night. Sunday passed the same. No call, no clue.

Monday he wasn't in class. When she'd confirmed he wasn't coming back, Cuddy tracked down the amateur photographer from the night of the party, cornered him and made him sift through six boxes of snapshots for the one of her and House.

For too long it would be all she had. Their time together was too brief but this one tangible thing was proof, relief. She nursed no hopes of ever seeing him again. The legend in Michigan might have been love of her life but the scope of their affair was reduced to one night.

House wandered nomadic, yearning stolid for what they should have had. He never regretted what went unsaid. The morning he got the call it wasn't only pointless to tell her of his expulsion, but to leave their collegiate chronicle incomplete left some possibility, some vague unreasonable opportunity of one day picking up where they left off.

So he did not quarrel or sulk or despair, didn't make a religion of what he found only to watch it fall away from him. He knew that whatever happened to him, whatever happened to her, they would always be a story with no ending.


	3. the two of the against the world

Notes: This is officially hiatus-long fic. Maybe longer. Updates won't be immediate, but I promise this is going somewhere. Title from a Rolling Stones song. Thanks for reading! Reviews are very appreciated.

**Symmetry ****(pt 2)**

**The Two of Them Against the World**

The next chapter in their sinuous teleology came as accidental as the first.

_**vertigo in hindsight**_

The pain started in the morning.

Stacy asked what was wrong, House shrugged. In her cynical voice she said she hoped he wasn't planning to play hookie, that they'd had the golf date with the partners of this firm for months. He nodded, dressed. On the green of the third hole he started sweating, faint from the excruciating ache wrenching in his leg. By the seventh he'd collapsed.

Three days later Cuddy found him––writhing helpless in a hospital bed, misdiagnosed and dying if she couldn't convince him surgery was his only chance. He wasn't alone.

It was too late, in too many ways. Cuddy had no time to mourn the second loss of him––this time to a woman. She was too resolved to save him.

For him there was the requisite panic attack of seeing someone from so long ago who meant, still means something to him. He could only lie an invalid, pitiable, attached.

He treated her like a stranger, never acknowledging that they knew each other before this, and she couldn't blame him. The circumstances induced amnesia. He had to ignore their past in order to forget everything he was about to lose. There was no optimism, only a prognosis. An intervention. He'd have rather died than ruin it. Only after it all fell away did he realize what he had.

Cuddy saved him, charged the defibrillator and stood strong when Stacy could only cry. House called it grace. But the familiar face was less than consolation, insisting on amputation.

The middle ground was born out of the fear the two women who loved him couldn't overcome: losing him. After, neither would be the same person to him. He'd hate Stacy for making a decision that wasn't hers to make, and Cuddy for telling her to do it.

They could never pick up where they left off. Her presence was unwanted; Cuddy could only watch him recover from a distance. She maimed him, saw him die and brought him back, now she might never see him again.

I don't love you, she wanted to tell him the day he was discharged. Except she couldn't, too afraid he'd see through the lie, or worse, believe her.

Late November, fall was losing to winter. Stacy had finally left. House stormed into the clinic, demanding a refill for an old prescription. As per the new Dean's request, the nurses called her before they called security.

He was a mess. His gaunt, pale complexion marred even more by a full beard rendered him almost unrecognizable.

"House, it's late."

"You're still here," he turned to say. The menace had vanished from his voice though the words were a prescient criticism of her constancy.

"I'm going home." She was standing in front of his uneven frame doing the visual primary survey doctors do, mock objectivity.

"My leg hurts."

"I know."

"C'mon," she said the same way he said it to her years before.

"I'll take you home."

"But––"

"I'll write the prescription myself, okay. But the hospital pharmacy is closed. We'll have to stop on the way."

He nodded, a wave of relief making his eyes water. Her hand reached out and he hesitated before he took it. His was shaking, a sign of withdrawal, or chronic pain. For now it didn't matter. Reciprocate, don't complicate the overdue rescue, she told herself.

Dead leaves cluttered the sidewalk outside. It was dark and he was struggling to see any obstacles in front his feet, trying to deny the dependency. He didn't ask her to be his crutch. At the far end of the parking lot, he was about to complain about how far away they make the Dean park, with some sexist remark to amend, when his leg gave out. She held onto him, resisting the same gravity. She wasn't afraid of falling, and she wasn't afraid of falling with him. If he fell hard, he knew from that second on, she would fall harder.

House sighed when he had steadier footing, slumped in the passenger seat. She watched him out of the corner of her eye. He needed a haircut, wore the musk of someone who hadn't bathed in a week, hadn't shaved since this happened to his leg. She remembered the bronze skin of a fading September tan. She wanted, more than anything, to make him whole again.

They stopped at the pharmacy. The bottle rattled bleak as he pulled it out of her grip the second he could reach. The impatience of an addict could be reversed, rehabilitated. At least that's what she wanted to believe.

At his apartment she helped him out of her car, reaching out her hand, warming it with his. She hooked their arms together until he shrugged her away, and settled with her hand pressed at the small of his back. She was in the middle of a famine of affection, and standing beside him, helping physically seemed to assuage it. Whether she could admit it yet, he was the facet unfulfilled.

He unlocked the door and staggered inside. Scrabbling for the lamp, he turned it on and she could see his first gray hairs in the beard. Where did the time go, neither could say, just that they'd been too long apart and this was too high a price to pay.

Cuddy could have turned, ran away, told herself he wasn't the same. Yet in her fidelity to his suffering, she went to him unreservedly, almost sexually. She wanted to take his face in her hands, embrace even his mistakes, so indelibly were they a part of him. She wanted to say _we'll_ get through this. You're not alone.

Backlit by orange light through drawn blinds, the sarcophagus of his figure loomed too close. When he took off his jacket, she saw blood soaking through the sleeve of his shirt.

"House, you're bleeding."

"Yeah," sardonic grief resonated in the one word.

She went to his medicine cabinet and came back with peroxide. He pulled his arm away, not wanting to drawl out his explanation about endorphins while she wasted her time trying to make him feel better.

"You should clean the wound at least."

"Later," he said, nodding the negation. He needed to sit down. His leg was weakening, he tumbled forward, she caught him, and, a whiff of him.

"Can you stand long enough to shower?"

He looked past her, but there was no disguising his humiliation.

Cuddy whispered, "C'mon."

"I'll draw you a bath."

Sitting on the toilet, House undressed while she scoured his closet for clean linens. She came back in and he stood, less concerned with his nakedness than the fact he needed her help for something so simple as this.

"Here, lean on me," she said offering her hand and arm and shoulder, without the slightest indication of duty in her voice. She belonged here somehow. That instant he knew displacement's a myth. He wondered if she still had the photograph, or if she'd forgotten about it.

He lifted his left leg and sank a foot in, the water a few degrees hotter than expected. His right leg trembled but her support was strong. Once in, he squatted, then sat, submerged and looking up to her with the blue eyes of a brokenhearted little boy.

"Holler for me when you're done," she told him, a hint of maternal inflection in her voice.

House soaked a long while, running the water until it ran cold, waiting for the hot water to return, running more, really waiting for her to go. He didn't deserve her.

He was also waiting for his erection to fall flaccid; by this point it was just a frustrating biological reaction. He hated his body for so many reasons. He'd have taken it into his own hands, if not for fear of her walking in on him. The only thing more pathetic than having an inopportune hardon was getting caught a perverted cripple who can't even get out of the tub to lock the door before beating off. He also had some faraway hope he might get somewhere with her, again.

"Cuddy!" he finally yelled, waiting for silence, the confirmation that she'd left him.

But she was there, ready to help him stand and step out. She wrapped a towel around him and pretended not to notice the flagrant mast between his legs.

"Feel better?" She asked reaching out her hand.

House was hunched and leaning heavy. With swift unexpectedness he lunged forward, kissing her hard. Tongue steadfast, lips triumphant, he was dripping, sweat and water and tears when she yelled "House!" into his mouth. The glide of his tongue over hers, overheated oral tact, and love, made the urgent press of their bodies against the wall all that was left for either of them in the unfair conspiracy that had reunited them.

The hand around her back moved to her breast, cradling it, squeezing.

"House!" She shouted this time, breaking the kiss, pushing him away when she wanted to pull him closer, hold him through it. She knew he needed a distraction.

The tears that had cumulated in the corners of his eyes stung dire. Cuddy turned and walked away, indignant, leaving House to stare apologetically at the floor. When he heard a door open he cried, "Don't."

"Don't go."

She closed the door to the closet and reappeared, dabbing at herself with a hand towel. "I need something dry to put on," she reassured, exasperated. House dressed himself clumsily quick so that he could spy, watch her sift through his drawers, undress. Sneaking a peek was enough of an incentive.

There was a tshirt large enough to cover most of her. Tonight she had no intention of being a tease though, and continued searching for something to conceal the rest. An old pair of track shorts were in the back of the bottom drawer. She never knew he ran. From then on, she'd only know what she'd taken away from him.

House had limped into his bedroom by then, collapsed hopeless across the mattress. There was nothing she could say. Only his feet were under the covers, the rest of him shivered bare, in just his boxerbriefs, as if he had to remind her what she did to him.

Even with all his scarred disdain, she didn't see his injury under the same banal light as every other patient. There was still his soul, trapped in a damaged body, his lust for puzzles, that matchless and inimitable obsession. She wanted to bring it to the fore, wanted him to be again the interesting lunatic he once was.

It might have only been nostalgia, her longing for youth that was time spent and stolen. Now there wasn't even a thin line separating his anguish and her guilt. He was at his lowest and she had some part in putting him there.

"Does massage help?" She finally asked, a feeble perverse attempt at conciliation.

The question echoed and she sat tentatively out of place on the edge of the bed. He'd propped a pillow under his leg and she pulled at it, readjusting. She knew he'd ditched physical therapy after one session. And her deduction after that kiss was that he needed some kind of contact.

Her hair was wet from the way he fell on her after the bath, a crescent curl curving above her eyeline. She was nineteen to him again and it was too much, he had to deflect.

"Vicodin helps," each syllable punctuated with contempt.

Cuddy handed him the bottle from which he poured a few and dry swallowed, shutting his eyes. She used the opportunity to inch closer to his side. She knew he was listless, just waiting for her to leave. One palm covered his thigh, just above the scar. His skin was still warm, the room too cold. Trying to ignore it, his toes bent, his elbow crooked. When she didn't relent, his eyes opened. He cleared his throat.

"What are you doing?" He tried to ask but the ricocheting twinge and pang, the constant throb was derailing in what almost felt like relief. She dug her fingertips into the scar tissue, manipulating the muscle around it and working out a cramp until he stopped resisting and the trembling started to subside. Or maybe the opiates had taken effect.

Her kneading turned to a caress, so that he was aware only that she was touching him, stroking, her fingers bending in farther, pressing deeper as his arousal rebounded, unwanted because he couldn't reach out and touch her the way she was touching him. He could only lay there paralyzed by the intimacy, take what she gave him, telling himself he was too old for this.

Her pace and grip responded to the cadence of his breathing, the twitch and quiver of his stomach muscles until there was a rhythm, and it was only the back of her hand grazing the length of him through cotton. He thrust almost imperceptibly, trying to remember what it was like the first time they laid side by side in bed, the details of that night resurrected. He clenched one hand into a fist, reaching for her with the other. Without a word, a sound, or even a harsh breath, he came, and was, for a few moments, not in pain. She kept rubbing his thigh, her knuckles gradually getting stickier. A quiet shudder as it waned, he sighed deep, not meeting her eyes. How long had he covered his and seen her despite. Now he was holding the blindfold down and remembering her overly ambitious, their one night. In minutes he was asleep, dreaming, still dreaming of what might and should have been.

An interlude of self doubt later, Cuddy went back to her briefcase. Sitting silent in his desk chair with her legs crossed, she toiled to find a way to put him on the payroll. In the middle of the night she leaned over and kissed him, strangling whatever emotion that made her want to wake him, make love him, take vows or resign everything, anything to save him.

Day broke, gray light filtered through charcoal curtains. She woke him by knocking over a vase, misplaced on the windowsill. Flowers that he got Stacy, maybe, flowers someone sent him. Pastel pink and yellow, wilted and dry, scattered in a few droplets of water and shattered glass.

The crash commenced the morning after they'd never had. House watched her pick up the pieces and she felt him watching her, wished he'd say something.

"You should shave," she finally said, too unnerved by the unflinching examination.

"Monday you're meeting with the board and, pending the final paperwork of Wilcox's retirement, you'll have a position in nephrology."

She threw the glass and dead pedals in the trash.

"If you want it."

House blinked hazy. He'd rather have heard her say she was wrong than give him a job. Cuddy sat down, slipped on her heels. She tilted her head, waiting for him to say no, or okay or anything.

"I remember those ankles," he lamented, following some long internal tug of war.

It was the first time he'd acknowledged they'd known each other, loved each other, in what now felt like another life.

The room was warmer, he knew she'd adjusted the thermostat. Somehow she'd be his anchor. He'd find shaving cream on his bathroom sink later, and understand that this was a conjugal scene; in the reflection of the mirror he'd catch the faintest glimmer of where this was leading.

At the door she adjusted her suit collar. Her clothes smelled like his soap, his shampoo, like him. He had no idea she was being more selfish than selfless. Cuddy couldn't lose him again. She knew what it would cost her. But it was worth it, worth the waiting, worth bearing the brunt of his misery if one day he could see––

His hand was jiggling the knob.

"Why are you helping me?" He asked, with a sort of reflex curiosity.

"Because," she started, shaking her head. I love you was the answer and it wrung heart that she couldn't tell the truth.

"I know you, House."

"Yeah."

"You're going to be alright."

The backs of her curved fingers traced the line of his clenched jaw. She kissed him softly, regretfully at the corner of his closed mouth, sealing the fate of their relationship as platonic, professional, in abeyance from then on. That would be the last time she touched him with any intent other than arbitrary or clinical until the night he knocked on her door told her she'd be a great mother.

_**first date**_

She's touching him now.

She left him alone, the way he asked for as long as she could. In getting up to check on Rachel, she stands and watches him sleep a while. She goes to him, seeing the photograph close and something tightens in her chest, twisting, reminding her the tenuous way they started this. She crawls onto the bed beside him, and drifts into a light sleep feeling like it still is and has always been she and House against the world.

Morning comes stolid, the sky the color of the cusp of summer. Cuddy is curled up behind him, her knees smooth against the backs of his. House tries to stretch out of the fetal position he's found himself in but gives up when she won't let go.

He could get used to this. Being here, being loved. His leg hurts but this eclipses it.

It took more than a decade to come to terms with her bleeding heart and his undeserved infarction. She has waded through the tears, been his life support. They had to be buried under concrete facing catastrophe and an engagement ring before he could finally admit he might have been wrong about everything, that he'd be happier if he'd let her, forgave her, could stay with her.

Cuddy knows he's awake. She's nervous. She's holding a newer, more willing House in her new house and has no idea what to expect this morning. Her hug around him loosens. His hand runs the length of her forearm, circling her wrist when he opens his eyes. House turns over so that he's facing her. He bows his head to kiss her throat, breathing in the scent of her hair, concentrating on all the places he's sure Lucas and no other man ever knew existed, until their drowsy arousal fades into every shared memory.

Straddling the decision of sleeping in or having sex, or both, the alarm clock starts shrieking in Cuddy's bedroom and she races to shut it off before it wakes Rachel. House stares at the ceiling, blinking sand out of his eyes and wondering why they never let this happen sooner, before there was a toddler in the picture.

Reentering quietly, she lies down beside him and says "Good morning," pressing her lips to his cheek. Her hand is warm under his tshirt, and he can't not love her for the way she's holding him overprotectively.

This is the part where, any day before this, he'd either start making love to her or leave. Here and now, both get crossed off his mental whiteboard. House sits up, reaches for the ibuprofen and strokes his index finger down her pale thigh as she stands, stretching.

Cuddy thinks she hears Rachel waking and they meander, trying on their togetherness, into the kitchen. House starts a pot of coffee and combs her cupboards to find there is no food for grown ups.

The door to the empty pantry is open when she walks in, tousled and preoccupied by whatever's on her mind. House is tapping his cane.

"You didn't tell me I'd be coupling with Mother Hubbard."

"I haven't had a chance to get a lot of groceries for this place yet. As soon as Marina shows up…"

On cue they're interrupted by the doorbell. It's the sitter, early for once. Cuddy dresses in a rush. House, content to wear the same clothes he wore yesterday, watches. Old habits die hard that way.

"Come on. We'll grab a bite on the way," she tells him, half an order.

The other half is invitation and he's surprised that she's willing to drive to work together. However innocuous it may seem, they both know it's not. There's a hell of a lot on the line here.

Forty five minutes later and as many miles out of their way, they wind up at a waffle house in Plainfield because House wants waffles. They park and he holds the door. Cuddy is waiting for him to let go, for the ornery schoolboy to go back to pulling her pigtails. But he doesn't. He behaves and there's no negotiation. She wonders what if she'd told him she loved him sooner, all the lawsuits and arguments and anguish it'd have spared her.

They sit, perusing the menu and she starts fidgeting with the strap of this summery piece she bought herself a week ago. He's trying not to gawk but the hunger is rising, like they're still in their twenties, like nothing has changed.

"So, I guess this is our first date?" She asks after they order.

House grins that tight lipped grin. She's right.

It's not going to come back. There's no recreating it, just making it, trying to make it happen this time. And after all she's sacrificed, how long she's stood by him, this woman deserves some grand romantic gesture. He owes her that much––to make this work, to get them away from the reality that it might not. It's the two of them against that. It always has been.

"Could you get some more maple syrup?" House asks, spilling the last of what he has over the formidable stack that's just been put in front of him.

While she's waiting in line at the counter House makes a few phone calls. One to the hospital, claiming them both a few vacation days, one to buy tickets, one to offer the babysitter overtime.

Cuddy comes back unsuspecting with the syrup. She sits in front of her fruit salad and there's no small talk, no catching up, just a long comfortable silence where he watches her eat a strawberry, and has the diffuse epiphany that he's been waiting his whole life to watch her eat that strawberry.

They've been running from this for so long, time after time and to the same place. This is it, his last chance to tempt fate, fix what he's spent half his life breaking. He has got to make it work this time.


	4. greetings from asbury park

A/N: Short chapter. Springsteen lyrics and references throughout. My apologies to anybody who thinks mixing Springsteen within a Stones inspired story is a musical travesty. Mostly this chapter is my interpretation of s7 spoilers within the DF previous chapter ended in such a way that a friend suggested I end the entire story there. So if it fails from this point on, I'm sorry. If it doesn't, let me know. Thanks for reading! Reviews are spectacular.

**Greetings from Asbury Park**

"I'll drive."

House takes the keys from Cuddy's hand as her phone chimes. Preoccupied by the message on the screen, she gets in the passenger seat without protest. He turns the key and feels for the first time in a long time like he's at the beginning.

_**born to run**_

By the time Cuddy looks up from her blackberry they're fifteen minutes into their misadventure, moving in the in the opposite direction of PPTH.

"House," she starts.

"Yeah?"

"Where are we going?"

"Beach, eventually. Maybe catch a show," he squints at the gas gauge.

"Have to get gas first."

"We can't."

"We can actually. It's simple, we just pull up to the pump, turn the car off, pay ––

"I mean this roadtrip. I have meetings all morning. A new insurance rep is coming in at one. The nurse's union is trying to negotiate again… Marina's only staying until––"

"All taken care of."

Cuddy pauses. She isn't sure how to react if not angry. She wants to kiss him but holds it in, sighing instead.

At the gas station, she has a choice. Move forward with him and risk whatever misdemeanors they're capable of committing. Or turn back, change her mind, not go through with any of it.

"So, what's the verdict, boss?" He asks after filling up the tank.

"Fine," she concedes. "But we have to get back early tomorrow."

After the short respite, they stop again only at a drug store for House to buy more ibuprofen and a new cane, having remembered he left his at the crane crash site.

Cuddy stays planted in the passenger seat, spotting the sign when they enter Monmouth County, grinning girlishly and loving him for reducing her to irresponsible impulses.

They park in Asbury Park and grab a late lunch from a street vendor.  
With their arms linked, they stroll along the boardwalk acting more like this is their twenty year anniversary than their first day away and together.

His cheap cane keeps falling in the gaps between planks and rather than strategically plotting the next place it drops, House surrenders it to the Atlantic, casting if off into the water without a second thought.

They spend the next hour scouring shops for a new one.

In the meantime, Cuddy is his crutch again. He leans on and follows her until, on a whim, he pulls her into a photobooth for a long kiss, all slippery unexpectedness. He slings his arms around her loose and presses his lips to her dark shining hair. In the last frame he winces more than smiles, feigning back pain for abdominal pain when she asks, with only some vague inkling of what it might mean. He limps out smiling and slips the black and white strip into his wallet.

They chase yesterday down backstreets, wandering out toward the beach. People are packing up and heading home so that as they watch the sun set it feels like they're alone, hand in hand on a deserted stretch. Restless or anxious or too in love to take it slow, Cuddy rushes ahead, into the waves and back again. Music roars in the distance, lights flicker. A familiar chord is strum. Behind her, House realizes that she was born to run, and that he might never catch up.

He also realizes he left the ibuprofen in the car and that this new cane doesn't fit either, but it's too late now because they're too close to the club to turn back.

_**show a little faith, there's magic in the night**_

The tickets are burning a hole in his pocket. He wants to shout the surprise but stays quiet until they're at the door of the club.

"What are we doing here?" She asks, a neon halo outlining her suspicious

silhouette. He hands her a ticket and watches her mouth gape gradually as she reads it.

"Springsteen? Seriously?"

"He's supposed to play a few shows here this summer. Unannounced, unofficial but tonight is supposedly one of them."

"How did you…?"

He isn't sure if she's asking how he knew or how he got them so he just shrugs. It was after the infarction. He broke into her house searching for her spare prescription pad. He was raiding the bedroom when, beside her desk, he happened to see her record collection.

The real reason he knows the boss' secret obsession is the Boss he can't say but Cuddy doesn't pry or question it anyway. The burly bouncer at the door is checking her out; House clears his throat. They hand him their tickets.

"These aren't real."

"What? They have to be," House insists.

"No. Legit tickets have a watermark," he holds it up to House's face, pointing patronizingly at the place the watermark should be.

"These don't."

House sighs a soul puncturing sigh. His scalper sabotaged him; this attempt at an unforgettable night is ruined. It's all going wrong already. He's still scowling at the gravel, trying to think of some other way in when out of the corner of his eye he sees Cuddy adjust her posture.

"You see," she starts, stepping closer to the bouncer. She's not talking in her business voice anymore. "We're doctors…"

House can only stand back and watch as she manipulates their way inside.

The opening act is a local band, playing a cover and then wrapping up. There is no guarantee that they'll see Springsteen but one hope has been blighted and reborn so he doesn't let his cynicism consume him.

They stand patient and off to the side and when she cranes her neck to kiss him, it doesn't matter what they do tonight, all he can do is kiss her back because the doubt is gone and he knows that she's the one.

The lights dim a minute later and Cuddy turns, rapt in anticipation. The spotlight flashes and he's standing on stage, an artifact of a telecaster strapped low and hanging from his shoulders. Cuddy and the rest of the audience scream ecstatic.

She sings, first line to last word of every song. Around them bodies move, sway, take them into the conspiracy: witnesses to something profoundly unrepeatable.

Fingers snatch at House's hand, intertwined and locked in a way that spreads the bones apart and almost makes them hurt. He looks at her and she's lost, elated.

This is the moment he's been waiting for and perfectly ironic. The inconceivable pitch of intensity isn't making mad passionate love in a seaside hotel, it's just watching her smile.

With the first few songs played, they settle into an acoustic set. Cuddy calms a little, the small and intimate setting leaving a trail of sweat down her temples.

The sudden lull in music has left a hiss in her ears and a void in which to hear House inhale. He's holding her and no matter how engrossed, she hasn't forgotten that's the true reward. He's hard, grinding his hips into her backside. She wriggles encouragingly against him, like they're too young and don't owe each other more and he laughs, his breath condensing over her skin.

They steal moments between chorus and refrain and he can't help feel like he'll never be this happy again. House has been full of the idea for so long, taking her away from the burden of administration, her baby, every other worry. Lyrically, this is their one last chance to make it real.

It's near the end of the show when they're caught, no stamps on the backs of their hands, no tickets or defense. Then they're out on the street, House feeling like a rat in jungleland, Cuddy still high on the adrenaline.

Silent a few steps, they look out at the ocean, the moonlight casting kaleidoscopic refractions off the shadowy azure waves. His jacket settles over her shoulders before she has a chance to shiver.

Cuddy is about to say something when House takes her hand and veers off toward the clear darkness of the shore. The sound of her laughing nervously dies slow on the cool summer air.

Out of the blue tide washing in at their feet, it comes to her, that collegiate distinction she couldn't recall at the time. He can't be sentimental because it hinges on the assumption that everything will last. He is House the romantic with the blind confidence that nothing will.

On the sand, where a fire has just extinguished, House sits, pulling her down so that they're both braced against a waterlogged log.

"Sorry," he says finally breaking the silence.

The apology spans broader than this night. Sorry you found me on the brink of relapse, sorry you've had to clean up all my messes, even though he knows she knows that all that's been lost today he's tried to replenish.

"What? Don't be. Tonight was…"

Leaning in, she rests her head on his shoulder and says with a sort of poignant finality, "Thank you."

Her hand is on his thigh, just like old times. House lifts it, stroking her palm with his thumb. It's been aching all night and now without some blaring distraction it's too much.

"It's good to know the rock music put you in the mood. But…"

The handful of sand he lifted he lets it go, watching every lusterless grain fall through his fingers.

"What?"

"My leg hurts."

"We'll go back," she tries.

"If we leave now we can be in Princeton before––"

"I don't want to go back."

Except he does, boomeranged ceaselessly between here and then, back before there were no words to tell her he loves her more than anything.

"I want to stay here, with you. Without the pain, not incapable of concentrating on this, you, Cuddy."

She stares at her bare feet a long minute. She doesn't want to placate him, and she doesn't know what's been left irreparable, only that they have to take their chance for happiness.

"It'll get easier."

"If it doesn't?"

"We've been through it. We'll get through it again."

He pulls back and looks at her, wanting to believe it. Some part of him is still missing the strength. Her hand cradles his cheek, drifting along his jaw, bringing him back to her.

"Whatever it takes, I think we can do this."

Her arms tighten around him and stretching over, she kisses him softly in corroboration.

For this moment sea and sky are breathless. A pale moon has risen and the faraway light's like a dream, enveloping them until they seem gossamer relics of the late night, tragically transient and already fading.

"House," she whispers, feeling relief when they break the kiss.

"Let's go home."


	5. half life

A/N: Lots of Stones allusions in the last three chapters. A dramatic arc is approaching. Sorry this took so long to update. No idea when the last chapters will be posted but I have no intention of incorporating s7 canon, so let's call it AU from this chapter on. Oh, and reviews keep me writing. Thanks for reading!

**Half-Life**

The garden in their new backyard is the first place House goes after the long drive back to Plainsboro. Cuddy rushes in to relieve Marina. The moon is still hanging in the pink and blue sky but she goes in to check on a sleeping Rachel anyway.

A part of House wants to walk in with her, make an effort to understand the parental solicitude. Another part of him feels like he doesn't and might never belong by her side.

So he's standing in the garden, dawn dew dripping on maple leaves, a circle of sunflowers behind some peonies. Don't look down, he thinks. He knows it's a balancing act for her, made more perilous by his presence.

Rachel will indubitably be the deciding factor of their future, a crucible of a kid, testing whether Cuddy is the one, if being loved is enough or if he just wanted her because someone else was trying to stake claim.

There is this festering hope as he trudges inside, an almost translucent picture in his mind of their wedding day. How her veil will be ruined in the rain, how it might never really happen.

He's still contemplating their steel guitar engagement when she comes into the bedroom, strips out of her jeans and crawls into bed beside him, too tired to even wash off her makeup. She reaches for his hand and he gives it to her. The carnage their souls have survived––bus crashes and blood clots, every ill fated affair with anyone else, too many tragedies in twenty years––it's all led to last night, and, this morning.

The thought dissipates as they both drowse off.

It's too brief a relief before the alarm clock sounds and it all starts over again. She's up and caffeinated and perpetuating her AM routine. House is watching her do yoga with a few snide remarks about sexual positions between stances when there's a knock at the door.

Through the peephole she sees it's Wilson.

"Have you seen House?" He asks her when she opens the door.

"It's been days. He's not at his apartment and I know he lost the patient…"

"How nice of you to pull yourself away from you ex-wife long enough to send out the search party," House starts to say as he enters Wilson's field of view.

"Is he…? Are you…" Wilson stammers.

"He's staying here," Cuddy explains. "After the crane accident––"

"Relapse could only be averted by my kidnapping," House interrupts. "And all the headboard banging is just collateral for the clinic hours I've missed."

Wilson looks at one and then the other, not sure who to believe.

"What happened to Lucas?"

House offers an exaggerated shrug and Cuddy shakes her head.

"House is fine, Wilson. Thanks for checking in."

The rest of the week passes unexpectedly ordinary. House announces "I'm seeing Cuddy," to his team. The casualty with which he adds "Generally without any clothes," surprises nobody. Still, he's bluffing. This isn't as easy as he's trying to make it look.

She surprises him by having his piano delivered the next morning after he's left for work. When he comes home to see it, the irrational impulse to elope almost overtakes him. "Thanks," is all he can manage before she's pulled away by a hungry kid.

That night is the first time Rachel hears her mother say "House is here," when the rev of his bike in the driveway approaches then echoes to a halt. The next day Rachel manages to repeat it, "House's here." Cuddy smiles when she says it, proud they're all three turning the page.

The regular week goes trouble free, both of them tentatively attempting to not flaunt their dubious arrangement once they set foot in the hospital. Before they get there, they manage to choreograph another routine, sometimes underscored by a toddler crying, or a sleeping in House squinting voyeuristically as his boss undresses to take a quick shower.

Too many times he wants to pull her down, thrust up, sate at least one unending ache. The time had passed to be romantic and they've revised these roles and it just isn't right. She's too rushed in the morning, too tired at night.

_**a means to an end**_

At the end of the week and an exhausting case for her, and, (the word makes her beam like a high school freshman) her _boyfriend_ and his team, Cuddy comes home to find her sister's car parked in her driveway. Once inside, she's surprised to discover Rachel's being picked up for the weekend.

Cuddy's expecting to be whisked away again––someplace farther than the shore this time, so House can sustain the illusion that they never have to come back. But after she kisses Rachel goodbye, he still hasn't made an appearance, though she can smell what he's working on. It's Indian or Asian, curry or stir fry, some complicated dish with exotic ingredients that he spent all day making.

She tiptoes into the kitchen and watches him. He's concentrating and sweating, donning an apron behind her stove, _their_ stove, and she can't help wonder how they got to this place.

"Come here," he says, without turning around. He raises the spoon to her lips and when she looks at him, tastebuds in awe, he nods, pronouncing dinner done.

"Have a seat, I'll plate it."

Something surfaces in his voice and as she goes to the dining room table, Cuddy thinks it might just be happiness.

A solitary candle stands at the center, leaving the room dim but not dark. He throws the apron into the corner of the counter and limps to lay the dish in front of her, a masterpiece. She knows her eyes are glowing as she looks at him. His are wide and shining and full of something as intangible as hope.

Cuddy lifts a heavy forkful to her mouth. The sauce takes a second to soak in, spicy and warm, the layers of flavor a slow sensory revelation. She chews quick and swallows, reaching to wash it down with the Reisling he's just poured them both. The next bite brings less heat and she makes a mental note to thank Wilson for taking him to that cooking class, applying his genius to something more delectable than diagnoses.

She looks up to see he's staring at her, too serious.

"What do you think?"

"Mmm," she says, relieved her mouth is full.

He grins, self-satisfied as he dives into his own dish. For a long relaxed time they reminisce about everything from Ann Arbor through the infarction, filling in the blanks in each other's lives for the years between reunion.

Taking his eyes off of her only long enough to notice the candle has melted into a pool of wax, House blinks and blows it out. He clasps her hand, leading her to the piano. Before she can sit though, her blackberry chimes and House cringes at what could be an epic interruption. But she just turns it off and tosses it to the far corner of the couch, resting on the piano bench beside him.

He starts into some sad melody, resisting the urge to confess she inspired it years ago when he thought he'd never see her again. There's relief now as he presses the keys, her lips against his temple and jaw and cheek.

The music fades into the sound of them breathing, until they stop and he kisses her, soft and languid and knowing they have all night. He keeps his eyes closed and presses his lips to her throat, counting off her pulse, how many heartbeats were wasted thinking this life was impossible.

Then she's moving away from him but her hands are still holding his face. They undress there, standing slow and struggling with the way the fabric rucks between their bodies. They start backwards, one unsteady step at a time. She bites his bottom lip, tripping over the threshold to the bedroom and he tastes like wine and want and every tear shed, every risk taken seems so worth it.

His legs go weak when the mattress is within reach and they collapse clumsily. House pulls her down onto his lap, taking his time, giving her pause to change her mind because they aren't starting something, their beginning was half a lifetime ago.

Cuddy kisses him tentatively, diffident, some shadow of inexperience sheening her lips. House holds his breath. The innocent exploration of her tongue is a lure he can't deny. He answers it with curiosity, capturing her, balanced above him, and brings her down. The length of him throbs, caught between their bodies, smearing heat as she squirms. Sucking on his jugular she can taste the salt and sweetness of his sweat and it strikes her, an almost alarming awareness of how much she wants this, how long she's waited.

He must intuit her anticipation because slow uncertainty transitions into panic and immediacy so that he's kissing her with the premonition it could be their last and he has to mean it to make it last.

Then, with almost romantic conviction, he rolls them over and penetrates her, when she's lost and already letting go, when they've both forgotten it's a means to an end.

House above her, his chest heaving, is levitated the perfect weight. This isn't how she thought this would happen. When he'd plotted their escape and it passed carnally devoid she thought it was from years of opiates. Now he's showing her just how wrong she was, how healed and hung he is. Tonight like always, House is––

"Right," she cries out on a rising note. "Right…right..."

"Right there."

Cuddy's keening, thin and high and breathy, dies out in hiccups through the first series of thrusts. The night wanes, her whimpers underscoring the unhurried escalation. She writhes surreal beneath him until they're too tangled and there's no objective beyond closure. The intimacy's inadvertent, the release collateral. This is finally reality, she can never dream it down. He kisses her when he comes so that all she can feel is the rush of heat rising through her, completion as his mouth covers hers.

- Morning comes bright and blue with her head sinking into his shoulder instead of the pillow and her body swathed in the warmth of his arms.

Cuddy's out of bed before him but he beats her to breakfast, scarfing down a bowl of corn flakes while he makes her an egg-white omelet. He loves the way she looks after they make love, flushed with her hair all over the place and her eye makeup smudged and her lips swollen.

He kisses her and stays behind, deciding to drive his bike while the weather's still nice. The rest of the day he hardly says a word to her.

Sunday is her birthday. She's called into work over some payroll dispute and finds a dozen roses on her desk. "There's more waiting for you at home," he tells her later, and shows her that night.

On her coffee table, with a card, is a photo album. There are snapshots he clearly bribed from her sister and some from ceremonies and speeches, Rachel's simchat bat and candids from days in between, all comprising a tangible chronicle from childhood to motherhood.

Cuddy thanks him, fighting tears because he's smiling and it's like the book he gave her that her grandfather wrote, so much meaningful sentiment and she doesn't know how to handle it.

They fall asleep with the album at their feet and in the morning House pulls her into the shower, initiating the day against lavender tiles.

Knowing it's reality makes him want to get on the hospital PA and announce it all over again, but there's no need. Every night he comes home to her, to them, every time she calls him Greg, he knows they're a little farther from the finish line.

Weeks pass and nobody is as astonished as House that he hasn't screwed this up yet. He's stopped drinking but the pain in his side persists. In the middle of a dull day of clinic duty, he's about to give himself an anonymous number and tie a tourniquet when she walks in and hands him another case.

Still in the stage of believing that if he ignores it, it'll go away, he tries not to remind himself that he thought it was nothing when the pain first started in his leg that fateful day on the fairway.

_**half-life**_

For a while he was keeping track of the number of days they've been together, how long he's been happy without sabotage or interference. Now he's lost count.

But she's saying they can't have the burden of hospital hierarchy hanging over their relationship. She can't be his boss and his better half.

He started humoring her, searching for a job in places he knew would never hire him. But now he's truly willing to give up the security and freedom of PPTH if it means staying with her. Happiness isn't some unattainable mirage anymore, it's compromise, a concession. And she can read it in his eyes, the way he's really trying, where this might be going that she never thought it could.

It's the middle of the night when the sound of Rachel crying wakes Cuddy from a strange but consoling dream. She stumbles into the nursery to find House is already there, crooning 'Fool to Cry' like a lullaby.

At first she can't decide if he's trying to impress her or if he just couldn't sleep. So she watches a while, unconsciously altering her decision about the alternative to being a single parent. He may not be the typical diaper bag toting stay-at-home dad, but House _has_ changed.

For better or worse, she wonders as she walks back to bed.

House doesn't mind babysitting and Cuddy is certain it's only to keep the peace, be the man she wants him to be. Ironically, he proves her wrong. Rachel is a kind of kindred spirit, a stranger to her biological parents, and he can relate. His childishness lets him bond just as much.

House's here, she thinks, the uncertainly of how long he'll stay setting in. He's on the floor, having a tug of war over one of Rachel's loud and blinking, albeit educational toys.

"House," Cuddy drawls. "Let her have it."

He lets go and Rachel pouts, abandoned.

"See, now she's bored," he says.

"Get used to it, kiddo," he hunches to whisper with the reassurance of a too often world-weary and lonely only child.

House steps back reluctantly. Cuddy puts on an educational DVD which scarcely distracts Rachel from the loss of her playmate.

"Do you want any more of those?" He asks, watching the overworked Dean slide out of her shoes.

Cuddy sighs deep and freezes, the question hitting her like a sucker punch.

"What? Where's this coming from?"

House shrugs.

"I'm just saying, you tried getting pregnant before. If you wanted to try again, I think I'd be okay with that."

"Okay."

A long silent stretch.

"Have you thought about it?" He pries, unrelenting.

Cuddy swallows, knowing her answer but not knowing what he wants her to say. Everybody lies. She's always known what she wanted in life, but not with House. And now, not without him.

"Not really. I've been busy enough with this one. But…"

"What?"

"When I was…"

How long has she denied it, even to herself.

"When I was still trying the IVF, I wanted to ask you."

"I know."

Of course he did.

"I don't know why you didn't," he admits.

Cuddy tries to say it was complicated but "Neither do I," slips out before she can censor her regret.

She never saw House inheriting the role of stepfather. Or maybe she did, but never imagined he'd volunteer. She never thought he hoped for anything, let alone for the same thing as her.

There's effort in the commitment and the days go by fast. He makes her laugh. She's been off the pill since her third month with Lucas and House knows it, and she knows he knows it but both have no expectations. They can only plunge head first into the unknown abyss that is this relationship. They've made no promises, have hurdled over the pretense and are finally getting comfortable in their unconventional coupling.

The third time they make love this week he's wearing a necktie. Another interview. He unknots it and fastens it around her wrists, leading her to the bedroom because Rachel's asleep and he's started to like the challenge of staying silent through this scene.

After, she's laying on her back with her head pressing into the pillow, her chin slightly lifted and her eyes fixed on the ceiling. House studies her. The characteristic tension of her body reminds him of a taut string. He wants to strum it loose. She closes her eyes and he glimpses something. It comes like clairvoyant pathos, this woman who had loved him when he was still nobody, who was ready to sacrifice everything for his sake, a contender who could read his mind, adore his imperfections, who is closer to him than anybody else before or since.

The surge of boundless love is fleeting. His mind's filled with the fear of inevitably losing this, the pain rebounding unbearable. He knows how long he's wanted her, how easy it could all fall apart.

As he strokes her face, he can feel it slipping away.

Late the next day, he sneaks into her office. The roses he got her for her birthday are a pile of pedals on the sill, the lights dimmed. The windows are open, patiently exchanging the tainted inner atmosphere of dying flowers with the fresh drowsiness of the humid-hot dusk.

Summer is stagnant and drifting and gone by the time he turns on her desk lamp. The reason for the search suddenly escapes him as he opens the top drawer. She still has the ring. Lucas' engagement ring.

House has no idea what it means. He can only see it as a cycle; the way they slide from top to bottom and start to climb again.

Leaving the diamond where he found it, he goes to his office, staying late, restless and resenting how his life has changed from the progress of a straight line with no end in sight to a circular succession of unrelated events: expulsion, infarction, decades spent defying this fate and now the sudden absurd instinct for paternity facing the obstacle of a jewel.

Still, he knows she loves him. It doesn't matter that she wishes she doesn't. He's never loved her more. Too torn over what might mean nothing, House reaches for his magic 8 ball, sighing slouched in the chair. He wants to ask what the half-life of love is, when this feeling will start to wear off, if he'll throw it all away or if it won't ever be enough.


	6. smeared black ink

A/N: Stones allusions, though the title of this chapter is Postal Service inspired, for what it's worth. AU now since we're well into s7 but there are vague references to current events and no Thirteen. Sorry for so much ambiguity in this one, but I want feedback badly. I promise answers in the next.

Thanks for reading! Reviews keep me writing.

**Smeared Black Ink**

The scrapbook he gave her, as simple and straightforward a gift it is, Cuddy has made a ritual of leafing through at least once a day. There's something in the tangibility, the collection of recollections and the fact it was House who made it, that makes her feel he's always been there, even before she knew him. It helps her remember every idle spell alone, when she'd nearly forgotten the sadness behind his ingenious eyes. He's the thread throughout her personal teleology, the one remaining who might be holding it all together.

House had the same epiphany, Lisa Cuddy as his only existential continuity. The idea has dueled doubt. It's not bulletproof, but they're still standing, side by side by side, Rachel becoming an extension of Cuddy, making him question what he first saw as a teething inconvenience.

His frenetic thoughts can't be calmed since he found the ring. He has to know what it means. She just left for a board meeting though. And even if she were here there's nothing he could say that wouldn't sound angry or defensive or betrayed.

Within minutes he's pounding on Wilson's door. House is holding the ring out to him when it opens.

"It'd be more romantic if you got on one knee," he says, never nonplussed by House's interruptions.

"It's Lucas' ring," he starts. "Cuddy still has it."

"And this obviously bothers you. Have you considered talking to _her _about this?"

"It's been weeks, why did she keep it? She doesn't still love Lucas, and she can't be attached to the ring…measly three carats."

"You know who could answer your question? Your _girlfriend._"

House shakes his head, still struggling for the reason.

"Unless she doesn't want to let go of what the ring represents," House says to himself. Then, with a delayed panic he looks at Wilson.

"She still wants to get married."

Wilson squints, only half incredulous at the conclusion.

"That's one possibility. But you might be psychoanalyzing this too much. What if he didn't want it back, and she just didn't know what to do with it?"

"There's a pawn shop a mile away. Ebay at her fingertips. She was holding onto it for a reason."

Then, an intuitive leap.

"She doesn't know if she'll ever get one again."

"_Talk to her_. Find out what she wants long term, with or without you."

"What if we don't want the same things?"

"You've been negotiating with each other half your lives. You're still together. Every relationship is a compromise. You'll work it out ––if you _talk to her_."

House finally nods, at some internal solution, Wilson is sure, and not his friend's advice.

"What did all of your ex-wives do with their wedding rings?" He makes Wilson wonder before stepping out.

House spends the next hours contemplating the commitment. There's the legality of it, which can be as simple as two signatures. Then there's the spiritual aspect, that they can easily omit by making the only ceremony a civil one.

Theoretically, marriage might work. The contentious facet of the affair would evaporate; the intimacy would be irrevocable. They could sustain the illusion of permanence indefinitely. Vows might diminish the instinct for self-defense and smugness. His mind wanders away from theory.

Reality is much more ironic. Selfish, even. He realizes marriage might be the solution for relapse. She _would_ be his keeper. She couldn't let him kill himself, wouldn't be able to walk away. It's not his only choice, but it might be his best chance.

At the end of the week, House decides to lie to her as a kind of test. He tells her he got a job at a hospital in the city. It's a long commute, and in nephrology, not diagnostics. Cuddy initially considers he's bluffing.

"Oh, great. I was beginning to think you gave up on looking."

Rather than remind her that he's appeasing her, or dwell on the whole sum of the concession, he focuses on how, between the commute and the almost entry-level hours, he'll have little time to spend with her. And her daughter.

His tactic passes for truth. He tells her he starts Monday.

Sunday night she asks him to call and say he changed his mind and that she'll make them an appointment with human resources. He sprawls smiling, his hands behind his head, safe for now in the knowledge that she's gotten used to this. Professional proximity and domestic presence are going to have to coexist.

_**now what?**_

In an effort to initiate his interest in intransience, House makes what he tells himself will be a one-time offer before coffee the next morning.

"Why don't you let me baby sit?"

"You really want to?"

"Sure. I mean I'm living under the same roof and I hardly ever see Rachel. You don't need to keep playing keep-away with your kid. I'm here to play my role in this…partnership."

Her brow furrows. She shakes her head.

"What?" He asks.

"It's just that Rachel is getting older. She'll be in preschool soon, kindergarten. I, I don't know––"

She stands and closes her robe nervously.

"What I'm trying to say is I don't want her getting used to two parents if you have no intention of…"

Wait for it.

"Staying"

"And if I have no intention of leaving?"

A beat. She can feel her hopes rising, and knows she can't let him see it.

"We both know nothing lasts."

"That doesn't mean I don't want this to," he proffers.

"You're serious? You're not just offering to placate me? There's no ulterior motive here?"

"No."

"Fine." She stops biting her lip.

"You can baby sit six to nine on Mondays, Thursdays and Fridays, if you want. That'll give Marina early relief those days."

House nods, she steps away. A certain panic sets in when he realizes everything he just admitted was a turning point and that he has no idea what happens now.

Friday comes fast and bowling with his best friend is the third day forfeited to making sure a toddler doesn't swallow small shiny objects. House is less than fascinated, and he's not forcing any connection. They share few common denominators other than Cuddy's love for them. And their love for cartoons, he discovers Saturday morning.

At the start of his second week of this, he's getting comfortable with the routine. He can dodge clinic duty the second half of the day by saying he has to be home for Rachel, so that in a strange way he's looking forward

to it.

The little girl is less alien than when the first adoption was thwarted and he could only watch as she struggled to settle. Any hope he had of Cuddy returning to IVF and garnering the courage to ask him to help died when she decided to keep her. Even now, she's moving forward, far and fast and he's still pining to repeat history.

Cuddy comes home one night, drops her briefcase, slides out of her heels and turns around to see the two of them cluttering the floor with paper and finger painting. It's long past Rachel's bedtime and Cuddy scowls at him, secretly knowing it's a good sign he hasn't complained about staying late. Her breath catches when House starts dabbling on her ankle. His fingers climbing, his eyes are trying for an upskirt peek.

"House," Cuddy drawls . "We're not alone."

He rises to his feet and carries Rachel into her room.

Before Cuddy knows it, his paint covered palm is pressed to hers and he counters, "We are now."

She smiles against his neck and kisses him, tiptoeing as he leads her into their bedroom and closes the door.

The last weeks have been a barrage of quickies and slow sessions like this, so that when he feels completely drained of bodily fluids, she curls up beside him, sighing asleep and they wake ready to start it all over again.

Both have almost forgotten what this was like. Constant sex, another body always in bed beside them in the morning, conversations that are still nowhere near the border of banal–a place where what they want and what they need are finally the same. And he's wondering if he could make it happen, that one thing she's always wanted, that he's certain she still wants. Would it all fall in place accidentally, or would it not be enough for the three of them to stay this way?

_**smeared black ink**_

After, when she is blue and red and yellow every place his hands have held her, and she's too tired to move and wash it off, too post-coitally content to care if they've tie-dyed the sheets, he catches her off guard.

"Do you want to get married?"

"What?" The word comes out clipped. "Is that a proposal?"

"You said yes to Lucas, which means marriage is something you want. Or at least something you think you want."

"And you made this deduction after breaking into my office to find his ring

in my desk."

Wilson told her. Damn.

"I'm sorry, was that a no?" He redirects.

"No. Yes. House," she stutters, frustrated.

"I don't want you doing this because you think it's the only thing that will make me happy, or worse, because you think this can't last unless there's a marriage license binding me––

I'm not going to leave you. No matter where we are next week or next year. I've gone over every worse case scenario too, what if I lose my job because of something you do, what if you relapse. And all I know is…"

She inhales, their eyes meet. Still holding her breath.

"I can't not love you."

He leans in and kisses her softly, hovering.

"We'll go Wednesday."

"Where?" She asks.

"Borough Hall. Get a magistrate, or judge or county clerk to marry us. Or at least apply for a license. It takes what, three days?"

"House!"

"What? It's what you want. If I can give it to you…"

"It's too soon. We've only been dating months."

"But we've been together decades. If marriage were defined by every crisis of conscience, every sleepless night, every hour spent ––"

He can't finish without reminding her of all the struggles and loss

and wasted time.

"We'd be common law by now."

"I can't believe that you want this."

"I want you. And if it means I have to resort to an archaic ritual…tie some metaphorical knot…"

He shrugs. "I'll do it."

"I love you," he whispers, his emotional reticence irreparably shattered. He has to kiss her that moment, long and deep with all the hope left in his heart or else confide his worst fear.

Wednesday they do go apply for a marriage license. House, unwilling to let his matrimonially-impaired buddy be their witness, enlists a clinic patient who owes him a favor.

Then it's just two names and smeared black ink on a white page. Cuddy feels relieved more than anything as they walk out of the registrar's office. She never expected romance or a diamond ring but everything seems more intimate in the light of his readiness to commit.

He's insisting they go back and get solemnized Monday. Quick and painless, he jokes, like pulling off a band aid. But she's starting to imagine a formal ceremony with rice and flowers and bridesmaids, and two gold rings.

After he discovered she still kept Lucas,' House had every intention of finding another ring, a better ring, something tangible that he knows she needs. But the pain has become a formidable distraction. Some days the ibuprofen takes the edge off, others he's grinding his teeth to get through a differential. Jewelry shopping seems less important than the paperwork that actually makes them official.

He tells himself it takes time, and he rationalizes. The pain in his back has moved to his abdomen and is worse than his leg. He did his own labs days ago and eliminated the usual suspects. Whatever this is, horse or zebra, he has to saddle it, grab it by the reins and race to the finish line like his life depends on it.

An MRI is scheduled and he's considering what other tests to run on himself when a case inconveniently lands on his desk. Inconvenient because he's nauseated, aching, wondering how soon he's going to regret everything.

"Forty three year old man passed out last night after a week of what his PCP diagnosed as gastroenteritis," Chase tells him.

"The guy will eat anything," interrupts Taub.

House looks down at the file.

"Roy Kellerman," he says.

"Renowned and retired chef drafted by cable television to travel the globe and sample foreign and fermented, unpasteurized, freshly butchered and sometimes rancid cuisine."

"Food born toxin's most likely," Chases starts but is cut off.

"You think?" House snaps back sarcastic.

"Where was he last?" Taub asks, trying to peek at the file.

"Beijing and…Australia."

"Maybe Chase poisoned him," House suggests flatly.

"I thought this case would interest you. High profile patient, and he's had ten doctors look at him and rule out every food poisoning possible."

"Rerun their tests and when they all come back negative, meet me here with a theory other than it was something he ate," House orders.

He stares at the whiteboard a long while, waiting. He knows he needs a biopsy of his liver, an ultrasound if the MRI doesn't show him what he's looking for. Part of him is scared, not of the truth or the treatment, but that he might have started something with Cuddy that he can't finish. He doesn't want to quit but he can't tell her yet. He can't tell her until he knows what this is. So he shuffles out, this case rerouting his priorities. If he solves it by five, he'll get the MRI.

"Eating wallaby with aborigines, really?" House asks, stepping into the patient's room. His team's already there, standing surprised by his appearance.

"Chase, cover your ears, he might still have your homeland's mascot in his digestive tract."

"Who are you?" Asks Roy.

"I'm the doctor who's going to diagnose you. Accurately," he coughs.

"We reran the tests. He's negative for botulism, malaria, salmonella, e-coli and every other food born illness we could think of. His white count's elevated which points to infection," finishes Chase.

"Forerunners considering where he traveled last would be ––" Starts Taub.

"So, how much do they pay you to risk your life with every

bite?" House interjects.

"More than they need to," Roy grimaces. "I love my job."

"Me too. But that's mostly because I'm banging my boss."

"This might not have anything to do with job."

"You're traveling constantly and eating anything that doesn't crawl away from you faster than you can fry it. I'm thinking it does."

"So you know what this is?" Roy asks.

"No," House answers idly, leafing through Roy's chart.

"Maybe I'll get another opinion."

"Sure. If you really want to be moved to your fifth hospital where a clueless staff runs all the same tests we just did. Or, you could stay here, give us a few more hours and maybe, just maybe try to exercise some dietary discretion," House patronizes.

"My girlfriend's toddler at least knows not to eat things that smell gross."

His gaze is averted with a certain epiphany.

"I know what's wrong with you," he says quietly and walks away unaffected, leaving his team to answer the patient's confusion.

_**the one worth leaving**_

House disappears. Foreman, Taub and Chase search every suspect place when he's not in the office. Then they knock on Cuddy's door and explain where they stand with the case and House.

She finds him an hour later in Radiology. He's holding his own file with the same disregard he'd have for a patient's, trying to not seem sick. She catches up to him at the end of the corridor.

"How's your case? The bizarre foods guy going to be okay?"

"Case is solved."

"Your team doesn't seem to agree. They say you never told them what you found wrong with him."

"I'll send a memo in the morning," he winces, feigning annoyance

for agony.

She reaches for the folder. "These aren't his scans?"

"No," he snaps, pulling the file back. "They're not."

"You can't withhold a diagnosis. If you know what's wrong with him, you have to treat or refer him to a doctor who will."

"I don't know what's wrong with him," House's voice levels.

"I think I know."

"Then test, treat."

Shifting his weight and standing still, he sighs deep, despondent.

"You're in pain. I understand if––" Cuddy starts.

"You don't. You never will."

"House, you have been clean for more than a year––"

"That's not what this is about. It's not about relapsing, it's about functioning"

He's tempted to tell her everything when she interrupts with consolation.

"If you need time, if you need space or someone to talk to," she takes his hand. "I'm here."

"I know," he mutters, coldly unclasping and walking past her, a distant distracted look clouding his eyes.

House gets on his bike and flies home, a chill in the air portentous of early winter. Eventually he calls Foreman with the diagnosis. The next hours are spent strangling a bottle of bourbon. When it's dry, he calls someone else.

She knocks and he opens the door and it's like the old hurt come back, heavier than ever. He's always told himself he's better off alone but it's feeble solace.

The blonde comes in smiling, massage oil and other accessories filling her shoulder bag. Another effort to numb the pain, he tells himself and locks the door behind her.

Early morning. Too early and his back aches. A knock on his door and he assumes it's Cuddy but it isn't. It's Brandy. Déjà vu he mutters and she says she forgot her bag. House waves her goodbye again and crawls back into bed.

As Brandy's walking out, Cuddy steps in.

"We have our first big fight and you cheat? Why am I not surprised?"

House closes his eyes tight, hoping this is a nightmare, some fever dream he'll wake up from soon, well and happy and capable of asking for help.

"I knew you offering to baby sit was too good to be true. But some part of me said don't be suspicious, maybe you've changed. This is what I get for giving you the benefit of the doubt."

He sits up, shivering. This isn't a dream but he does have a fever.

"I did not cheat. She massaged my leg, that's it."

"She's a hooker. There's no way you paid her to do what a physical therapist would do on the hospital's dime."

"I understand if you don't believe me, but ––"

"There's no 'but' House. I can't do this. I can't hold my breath waiting for you to sabotage this relationship."

He clenches and releases a fist, exasperated.

"I wanted to have sex with her. I have had sex with her in the past. I did _not_ have sex with her last night."

"I don't believe you," she says, staring at him so disappointed.

The last thing he sees are tears in the corners of her eyes. He forfeits the fight, banging his head against the wall.

The sound of her footsteps leaving him echoes like he knew it would.

It comes to him later, when he's grappling in his desk drawer and finds the tickets he bought weeks ago for what he wanted to be their honeymoon. Mont Saint Michel. Maybe it was a mistake from the start. Maybe she should have stayed with Lucas. House can't make time to buy a ring, he can't convince her he's hasn't cheated, or that he won't go back on drugs..

Maybe he's the one worth leaving.

Late that night, when he knows Marina has left and Cuddy is home and second guessing herself, he drives over despite all his doubt. Unsure if he's going to apologize or explain or just pick up his things, he speeds away. The pain's unbearable now and he doesn't even know how he gets through the last mile, only that he's too compelled to slow down.

She hears him pull into her driveway. Before he can even knock, he hears her say, "Not now, House. I don't want to see you tonight, just go." Her voice fades away and that is all. He turns, leaning heavy on his cane, and with inexpiable defeat his footsteps falter, crunching on the gravel on the way to his bike. He can taste blood in the back of his throat.

Vertigo fades to black, his body falling graceless and alone in the dark. She storms out to tell him it's over one last time and finds him, collapsed unconscious. She cries out his name, saying not now, this isn't how he's supposed to make her change her mind.


	7. occlusion conclusion

Conclusion. Finally. Sorry it took so long. Comments are appreciated, in regards to this last chapter or the story as a whole. Forgive me in advance if the medical aspect of this isn't perfect. I researched some and improvised the rest.

A/N: I'm considering making an extended/alternate ending to this. If enough people request it, there could definitely be one more chapter. Thanks for reading!

If you want to refresh on any of the previous chapters here they are:

_**occlusion conclusion**_

The ambulance doors slam shut with Cuddy on the inside of them. She pulls rank with the paramedics, insisting on PPTH and using their presence as an excuse to withhold tears.

House is unconscious and, after they connect the leads, she sees his blood pressure's low. When she takes his hand, it's cold. The ambulance is speeding, but she knows it's going too slow. Right now she's hoping he did cheat, hoping this is a complication of some STD.

Right now she knows better.

And there's nobody in the ER to convince her otherwise. No Cameron with her blind blonde optimism, no Wilson defending the prospect of lechery. Nobody's standing except her and two doctors on her payroll whose names she barely remembers scrambling to keep the love of her life's heart beating.

After he is stabilized and the first wave of panic passes, when there's nothing to do but worry and wait for the first round of tests to come back, Cuddy goes to her office to recompose herself, smearing foundation under her eyes and across her face where tears and sweat etched the fear of imminent devastation.

Then she's in his office, the swing of the glass door slow and somber and uncertain as anything.

"We heard," starts Taub.

With her head bowed she offers, "The ER found ascites. We should test ––"

"He already did," Foreman interrupts. "Liver enzymes, creatinine, urea, LDH. He knew something was wrong."

"When?"

"Two days ago."

"Test again," Cuddy insists. "Do an ultrasound, and biopsy his liver."

The team get to their feet and rush out. This isn't the first time their boss has been a patient. It _is_ the first time his boss has stood impatient, on the brink of breaking down and willing to beg if it would make him better.

_**jejune stars **_

An indeterminate nausea has persisted for the past week. Cuddy knows what it might mean, the same as she knows it might not mean anything. So she tries to concentrate on the catastrophes they've survived and not the odds they're against.

The memory of one morning comes to her in times like this. Ann Arbor. Not just the aftermath of daybreak but the night before when she struggled him out of his leather jacket, her knees weak, hands trembling. They came together co-conspirators stealing a chance. Even at the height of his egotism there remained a kind of ingenuous wonder in her presence. And she was naïve enough to believe it was just beginning.

Outside stars like candlelight flickered too dim and losing to dawn. He sprawled still and close. The cool bathed his eyes and slowed the flight of time, time that had crept so insidiously through their few weeks In the blink of an eye they'd met and danced and somehow made it here. House stared at the ceiling irresolute.

She heard him wake, felt him turn and watch her a while. Without effort she looked chaste and unsuspecting. He thought she was asleep. She breathed even, didn't even flinch when his fingers stroked a strand of hair away from her eyes, or when he lifted the sheet to sneak one last peek.

Finally he leaned to kiss her softly. He tried to hold onto the moment and was chilled by the innocence of the kiss, the flutter of her eyeslashes and the sight of her sleeping body silhouetted by the September sun rising.

He knew it was goodbye.

Never would she have thought one night could so vastly impact the rest of her life. Never should it have taken twenty years for him to make her his wife. All she had to do was open her eyes.

Cuddy let him go, not knowing she could have followed him, found him, resisted then the way she does now the fate that led them to this place.

Her office door opens quietly. A pallid Wilson stands straddling the doorway.

"It looks like Budd Chiari," he chokes, not meeting her eyes.

"What did the biopsy reveal?"

"Biopsy was nonspecific but ruled out cirrhosis and galactosemia and cancer. And with his tendency toward thrombosis––"

"He had a clot in his leg so now he has one in his liver."

"We're waiting for the results of the new tests but with ascites and hepotomegaly. It fits."

Cuddy nods, exhales for what feels like the first time in hours. She feels relieved and she knows she shouldn't.

"I'll let the team know."

"Possible causes of the Budd Chiari?" Foreman initiates the DDX.

"We're sure it's Budd Chiari?" Chase haggles,

"Wilson confirmed," Taub endorses.

"Genetic predisposition would point to protein in C deficiency, protein S deficiency or factor V Leiden mutation," he continues.

"Toxin's a possibility. Pyrrolizidine alkaloids: Borage, Boneset, Coltsfoot, Comfrey, Heliotrope," adds Chase.

"And since the odds of him being exposed to any of those is next to nothing, and the odds of him getting depressed and calling a hooker are close to guaranteed, we're probably looking at infection. STD, or fungus," Foreman interrupts.

"Genetic tests are going to take the longest so start with blood tests for toxin and likely infectious suspects," he finishes.

They stand and start toward pathology to run the labs, all three knowing the futility of finding the underlying cause.

_**magnetic north**_

House wakes up gradually. He sees her wide awake still at his side. He tries to turn toward her but the throb in his abdomen interrupts his movement.

"You did a biopsy," he deduces, wincing. "Did it tell you anything?"

She nods.

"It's Budd Chiari."

House huffs half incredulous.

"Another clot. History repeats itself."

"We started you on heparin and spironolactone. Your team did a retrograde angiography. They're trying to figure out what's causing it."

"Doesn't matter. Slow onset turned acute, fulminant. I'll be jaundice

soon and then––"

"I put you on the transplant list."

"They aren't going to let you waste a liver on me."

"Your best chance is a transjugular intrahepatic portosystemic shunt."

"TIPS is just a temporary fix. Diverting bloodflow is an end around the clot. It's going to reduce the swelling. But the damage; centrilobular necrosis, renal failure, ischemia..."

His voice trails off. She's looking too pale.

"The damage is done."

He wants to ask her what's really wrong. He's been here before, so has she's never looked this scared at his bedside. Something else is wrong. He wants to ask, or confirm but can only manage:

"What's my Child Pugh score?"

"Elevated."

"Why not tPA?

"A shunt is safer. They've just started treating Budd Chiari with tPA.

The risks of hemorrhage, the chances of it working ––"

"But it's only been hours. I'm still within the window where it might make a difference."

Cuddy closes her eyes, trying to assuage the sting of tears.

"You're right. It's not too late."

"Alteplase," he prescribes knowing it will either cure him or kill him.

The intolerable bareness of his hospital room bothers her only after they take him out. She orders flowers and starts toward her office but turns back around. She has to be with him, no matter what happens or how much it hurts. Still, she's half afraid to go in.

At the threshold she hesitates, closes her eyes. Then, stepping into an even colder more sterile room:

"House, you should know I'm––"

"Tell me after," he strains to say, the anesthesiologist hovering over him.

She bows her head. He can see regret.

"And if I get a hematoma at the puncture site in my groin, you're the only one allowed to remove it."

His eyes close a prolonged moment and open to meet hers. He's trying to smile and counting backwards and out before Cuddy can think of anything else to say.

The procedure bears no complications. After the arterial catheter's in, they start the alteplase at 1.83mg an hour. Complete thrombolysis before the anesthesia wears off. No transfusion was needed, a hematoma localized but didn't need evacuated.

Waiting for him to wake up isn't easy but she knows telling him will be the hardest part.

It took all the strength she had to draw the blood and order the test on herself. And knowing the results breaks her heart. The pain, the past, the accumulating weight on her heart.

Of course, he might already know. It would explain why he acquiesced to marriage, his logic of giving her the second half of what she wants. It would explain the scene from dinner last week.

Rachel was in bed. He'd watched her a few hours that night and Cuddy wasn't sure how he'd manage to cook a four course meal and get a toddler fed, bathed and into bed early but the prospect of home cooking å la House kept her from questioning it. She dropped her briefcase and looked over his shoulder until he relinquished the spoon and finally offered her a taste.

"Mmm."

"Save the moaning for after dinner. Table's set," he said slanting behind the hot stove.

"Go, sit."

As she made it to the dinner table, her shoes slid off and she sat confounded by how they'd become something resembling a real family. Even if he hadn't changed, he was trying. She struggled not to think how easily it could all fall apart.

The plate landed in front of her, the aroma alone enough to eclipse any pessimism, or realism about this relationship. She mumbled 'wow' with the first bite still in her mouth and a short while later another syllable. "Wine."

She started to stand but House volunteered.

"I'll get it."

He came back with a half full wine glass. After a few bites she took a sip.

"House! This is grape juice!"

"All wine is grape juice, when you think about it. Really old grape juice."

"Where's my Bordeaux?

"I drank it.," he lied. "Pairs great with onion rings."

Cuddy paused, incredulous. She doubted he was telling the truth but couldn't see then why it mattered.

He was grinning smugly despite all his effort to conceal the I know something you don't know gleam in his eyes. For almost three weeks he'd been swapping her coffee with decaf, sneaking folic acid in with her meals. Before they went to the shore she'd thought she lost her birth control. Really he was hiding them, and keeping her distracted enough to postpone a refill. He didn't think it would be that easy.

What he didn't know was she'd already stopped taking it two months before she broke it off with Lucas.

They finished eating and he did the dishes. She'd DVR'd his soaps and expected him to veg out in front of the TV while she curled up in her bed with budget reports. But he followed her.

There were few words, just him watching her undress––his blue eyes like searchlights following her, patient. He pulled her down to him and she felt it, the raw want for her he's always had that finally crossed the border into love.

Then there was only the weight of him on top of her, kissing his way up her inner thigh, dragging his cheekbone over her skin, leaving a damp trail of kisses up her stomach until he was finally, finally inside her.

It was an hour but it was over too quick. After he'd shuddered her name, when she knew his leg must have been killing him, Cuddy pressed her lips to his jaw and loosened her arms around his back.

"Don't," he whispered.

And that night she didn't let him go.

They made love again, leaving both their suspicions unspoken. Cuddy could never distinguish the difference between what was intuition about his motives and what was hope. All she knew was that they were each other's magnetic north. No matter how much they fought it, or were afraid, they couldn't throw the compass away. It was all leading to the same place.

The rhythm of EKG nearly lulls her to sleep.

"It worked," he says before she can drowse off at his bedside.

"You were right," Cuddy starts, still thinking of that night. "The tPA worked."

"House vs. clot, 2-0."

He reaches out for her hand. His is ice cold. Cuddy leans in and he pulls her down, his arms in a tight grateful clasp. She rests her head on his chest and they lie still a long quiet time.

When she hears his breath catch she sits up, sees his fists clenched. His legs are writhing and his back is arches. His vitals escalate. He's having a seizure.

Cuddy hollers for a nurse and goes to the other side of the bed to get a syringe and some ativan and after administering it into his IV, she sees his catheter bag full of blood.

The seizing stops.

"House," she says. He's unresponsive. She gets the nurse's flashlight and checks his pupils. They don't react. Her heart sinks.

He's slipped into a coma.

A complication of the renal failure, she knows and rushes out.

The tears have crested and the instant she draws the blinds in her office they stream down her face. She doesn't know what she's crying for more, the fact that she never told him or the feeling that she's failed him so far. If he'd listened to her about the shunt ––

Life and death shouldn't hinge on an if. So she calms herself and tries to think like House. She's looking at his chart, struggling to be objective and after a few composed minutes makes a connection.

They're the same blood type.

There's more to matching them than that, she knows. And even if she could donate one of her kidneys, it would mean terminating the pregnancy. With her head in her hands she considers the ultimate sacrifice. For most women it would be easy. For most women pregnancy is repeatable, not a saga she gave up on or a biological feat the father is still unaware of.

Cuddy needs a consult. She walks into Wilson's office, finding him staring at his desk and looking lost.

"His liver survived but his kidneys are compromised."

"I heard."

"I preemptively put him on the wrong transplant list."

"He's on the right one now?" Wilson asks, unnecessarily panicked.

"Yes. But dialysis isn't going to bring him out of a coma. I don't know how long––"

She stops pacing. "I could give him one of mine."

A beat. Wilson nods. "You could."

With his words it feels a little less like it's all unraveling.

"It might be his best chance," he tries as Cuddy starts out the door.

It might be his only chance.

Now she's got a judgment call to make, wager all or hold her breath and wait.

Doubtfully she stands outside House's room as his team gives him another transfusion. She knows what she has to do. She orders the tests, books an OR for tomorrow morning and starts to fill out the paperwork. In a few hours, no matter how much it hurts. What she has to do to make him wake, get him back.

Everything will change.


End file.
